Family locator and safety service company Life360 is adding the ability to display Tile tracker locations in its app. The new feature’s rollout starts today, and it will let subscribers view not only their family members on a map but also the locations of their Tile-tagged items so they can keep everything and everyone in check. All users should get the update in the next few weeks.
Now Life360’s location monitoring app will keep tabs on your Tile trackers, too
After acquiring the item tracking company last year, Life360 is blending the Bluetooth tags in with its family safety service
After acquiring the item tracking company last year, Life360 is blending the Bluetooth tags in with its family safety service
Once it’s available on their account, Life360 users will be able to link new and existing Tile Bluetooth trackers and choose the family and friend circles that can access the location for things like keys, wallets, water bottles, medicine bags, and more.
In a press release, Life360 CEO and co-founder Chris Hulls said that linking Tile to Life360’s app adds value for customers and makes their lives easier. “The safety that Life360 membership already offers is now enhanced by Tile’s ability to help find lost items,” Hulls said.
Linking the services will also help bolster Tile’s Finding Network with more devices watching for pings from nearby trackers and making it more likely you’ll find lost items. As Life360’s 42 million-plus users opt in, the company says it can potentially “create the largest finding network on the market for both iOS and Android users.”
Life360 acquired Tile in a $205 million deal a year ago, but the two services have stayed separate until now. While announcing the deal, Hulls shared plans that the company’s tech would be integrated into Tile devices and Jiobit wearables (a pet and kid tracker Life360 also acquired) with a plan to display people, pets, and things all on one unified map. That vision is now starting to come into effect.
After Life360’s acquisitions, concerns for user data privacy rose as The Markup reported the company was making millions selling user data to brokers, including precise GPS locations. Life360 changed its tune on the practice earlier this year, saying that it would stop sharing precise location data with partners. It’s maintained that Tile and Jiobit tracking data will not be sold or monetized.
That dustup didn’t curb demand for the service, as Life360’s earnings report in August shows monthly active users jumped 29 percent year over year. Paid subscriptions are also up 41 percent at 1.4 million users. As for Tile, Life360 director of communications and PR Kristi Collura tells The Verge in an email that 50 million of the tracker devices have been sold. By comparison, according to an estimate from analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple may reach 55 million AirTags shipped by the end of this year.
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